Türkiye, Qatar to build about 1 million houses for refugees in northern Syria

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the start of the process of returning up to 500,000 Syrian refugees to their homeland.

Speaking in the capital's Mamak district on May 23, the Turkish leader said hundreds of thousands of Syrians will be housed in purpose-built homes in northern Syria, Anadolu Agency reported.

Along with the homes already built, he said, another program is underway in Syrian territory with the support of Qatar to build houses to house a million refugees.

"The construction of the houses is already underway," Erdogan said, saying Ankara is taking into account the experience of the world's leading countries, including the United States, France and Germany, in its migration policy.

Türkiye is currently hosting some five million refugees, the majority of whom are Syrians who fled their homeland since the beginning of the civil war in 2011. According to Erdogan, some 500,000 of the 3.7 million Syrian refugees in Türkiye have returned home since 2016. However, many of them were sent back by Turkish security forces to so-called "protection zones" which Türkiye set up along its border with Syria.

Türkiye is hoping to encourage more Syrians to return home by building more houses for the returnees inside Syria. "We will carry out this project with 13 local assemblies in the region, especially in Azaz, Al Bab, Tal Abyad and Ras-al Ayn, and it's pretty comprehensive," Erdogan said. 

Under the project, Türkiye will also help build a school and a hospital to serve those returning, and help with infrastructure needed by the local economy, "from agriculture to industry."